Commuting from the ‘burbs to work in the city is so last century, it seems.
In recent years, more young professionals have been living within a 30-minute commute of Lower Manhattan — and that’s a “brain gain” for the growing number of creative and tech companies opening Downtown, a new report says.
According to the Downtown Alliance, a Lower Manhattan business improvement district organization, the highest percentage (25%) of the New York Metropolitan area’s college educated population between the ages of 18 and 44, as well as its professional workforce in the same age bracket, now live within 30 minutes of Lower Manhattan.
That’s more than 750,000 college-educated adults, all living within 30 minutes of Lower Manhattan. It's a 39% increase since 2000, according to Census data that the Alliance used for this report.
The neighborhoods in the half-hour commute zone of Lower Manhattan are also experiencing the fastest growth in “high-value knowledge workers” moving to those areas, the study says.
From just 2010 to 2013, an additional 43,000 professionals moved near Lower Manhattan. Since 2000, the Downtown population has increased by 214,785 people.
Meanwhile, many of the longtime suburban commuter neighborhoods — including Westchester and Long Island — have either stagnated or declined since 2000, the report says.
So why is it good to have all these brainy, professional and creative folks so close to Lower Manhattan? Young professionals don’t want those long commutes their parents made, so keep bringing your industries Downtown, the Alliance said.
In case you haven't heard, numerous tech companies and big media conglomerates, like News Corp., and Conde Nast have either already moved, or are heading Downtown to new offices.
“All roads lead to Lower Manhattan,” says the nice-sounding woman in the video above. “Why would you have your business anywhere but here?"
If the three-minute video was enough of a sell on the data, the full, 44-page report can be found here.
